Sothy: Judgment and Wilber

[Dialectic]

[D here. Sothy and I have been buddies for a long time now, and we often converse on random topics over email. I'm going to be posting our Integral and Racial Identity-related conversations here. So far, he's been doing most of the writing, and I've been merely promising to respond. When I do, it'll be in these threads. If anyone else wants to jump in, please feel free. We're not operating on a super-high level here, though base familarity with AQAL and SDi is necessary.]

[Sothy wrote some Canadian government tests. Sothy:]

Before writing the judgement test today I basically assumed Canada's psychologists (the fed ones that make up the test) are, somewhere in the orange/green meme, BUT here is the kicker...are they are orange-orange, or are they green-green, or are they orange people valuing the green stance or greens doing it for orange (they could be higher as well. Furthermore, how does one work that in with the idea that sometimes you should see your superior [when a co-worker is causing problems or being dishonest] and then sometimes you should let the person realize on their own, etc. (cause that sounds like exterior and interior causation is being accepted).

The problem lies in that if the orange stance leads to objective human rights (which it did), why the no-gay marriage thing that many countries have. What's the difference between green and orange human rights (yellow, etc. human rights)? Green values no one ahead of other ones, while orange is objective so no caste system, etc. anyway....

What's your take on green vs. orange human rights?

I think that's the key to determing which judgement they want at which time. I base them being at an orange/green level based on Canada's official mission statement on our various websites...which have that everyone is equal, value all views, etc. stuff all over it.

[Dialectic]

[Sothy follows up. I probably asked for some clarification. Sothy:]

Here is how I currently see the green vs. orange thing (I know this isn't
right though...something ain't right, perhaps because it is an example, but
doesn't really build the general case) when it comes to human rights.

If you look at the Cdn Gov.'s throne speech you'll see two things,
"linguistic duality" and "multiculturalism" mentioned as aspects of Canada.

Now, to me, these really reflect ideals of the "realistic" human rights
folk and the "idealistic" human right folks.

Canada has a history wherein the French played a prominent role, as a
result, it is reasonable that services should be maintained in French to
reflect this history. Of course, Aboriginal languages should also be
official in this case then, but that would mean recognizing numerous other
languages leading to the possiblity of someone speaking several "official"
languages and not being able to communicate with a co-worker. In Western Canada, Mandarin, Cantonese, Punjabi, etc. are languages which should be "official" if French is as well. After all, my folks know 3 languages (yours too), but they couldn't get a management position in government as you have to be "bilingual" for that. Why this unfair, "racist" (as let's face it, who exactly speakes Mandarin and English) policy exists in a country with so many human rights is the whole "rational", reasonable idea of human rights. You can't recognize every group, can you? How can a functional society exist with no common language/order. Hence the somewhat arbitrary cut-off of only English and French being official languages. The greens wouldn't like this...but it makes sense.

Enter the "multiculuralism" aspect though...Canadians takes pride in their
multiculturalism. They want to value every culture as being one which
should be allowed to express itself in this country. The traditional court
system is steeped in Protestant views. Jewish people in Ontario are
allowed to have legally binded decisions on civil matters be administrated
outside of the standard court system. As a result, it seems only fair that
Islamic people be allowed to do the same (this is actually being considered
in Ontario). A reasonable extension of this is that in time, Sikh courts
etc. will exist. Why favour only one group, to do so is not fair. To
argue that it wouldn't work is akin to saying that the family would be torn
apart by women entering the work force. Places and people adapt, change is inevitable, the future should be based on equality, not maintaining the status quo. Great, but oranges might not think this is too practicle (blues would also not like it of course). This could also be a very bad example as human rights vary across cultures, so greens could also argue that only ONE court system should apply in a given country/area (BC has said this and doesn't have any special courts, whereas Ontario already has one), and that this idea is no good...or is that an orange idea?

Some things like homosexual marriage kinda falls in the middle these days
in Canada. By allowing it you don't run the risk of "damaging" the status
quo really (the percentage of homosexual Canadians that will actually marry will still be quite low (as a lot of people will just opt for Common Law status as it is quite common these days), so it doesn't make rational sense to harm that group by disallowing them from marrying (orange stance). Of course, the greens will love it...as the blues don't have the support of the oranges in this case, they can't really stop it (polls are very 50/50 split, but oranges (I think) try to act with their heads and not their
hearts). In the US, perhaps oranges disagree with it because they know it
would cause the blues to "revolt" and that would "damage" the status quo.
As the US and Canada are probably on very similar paths as far as
developmental psychology goes, the fact that homosexual marriage will be
legal here within a year (nationwide I mean) as opposed to the US where it is a pipe dream for the most part is very interesting.

So, blues are for human rights among their group (ie. citzens of my
country, members of my religion, etc.). Numerous people feel that you
should treat your "own" with respect, dignity, etc. It's very subjective
as to what one's group is of course. The blues are upset that
English-speaking Canadians don't just have a straight up advantage as most of us speak English.

Oranges feel that everyone should have the same rights (objective
afterall). However, they remain somewhat ethnocentric and somewhat
worldcentric. So they don't want to unbalance the status quo too much.
They will restrict the rights of some (ie. linguistic duality) if they have
to as it causes less harm. This makes it sound like they don't look down
on the blues, which of course they do (this bias in description is a
reflection of me). Still, the French rights is good, the sticking to
linguistic duality, questionable.

Greens are so determined to leave their past behind that they have become dangerously worldcentric. They will ignore potential dangers in the name of universal rights for all. We must be culturally sensitive. If that means Jewish, Islamic, etc. courts that is fine.

Perhaps yellows are those that would say that while Jewish, Islamic, Hindu,
etc. courts are fine, that every culture is developing, so we must be sure
that a court system exists that doesn't stiffle development of people, but
that still allows for cultural sensitivity.

I'm not sure...which is why this is such a long email...

I'm also not sure where I would fit in. I don't like the linguistic duality
thing. I realize that it is great that we didn't force the French to learn
English, but I find it unfair that many people can't get bilingual jobs who
know many languages and that Aboriginals could conceivably not get a
bilingual job even if they knew English/French and their cultural tongue.

At the same time I am very nervous about the prospect of the legal system accepting binding civil decisions to come from outside of the court system. While Ontario has allowed Jewish courts and it has been successful in reducing the caseload of the civil system there, it seems very dangerous to assume that all other non-Protestant based legal systems will also be so successful. Islam is,of course, the bogey man in the media, so while I'm curious as to what effect it would have on Muslim Canadians who opt to use Shariah law, I am also wondering about the other, less common, religions that could make Charter challanges if we "open" things up. Some of those religions who just cults (in a negative sense). Not a good thing...not everyone is ready.

One court system seems like a great idea, however, I do realize that
judges, juries, etc. won't always know what to weigh as important, so I see why some say we should have more Recognizing many languages is great, but really, is it realistic?

[Dialectic]

[My cheap-ass response thus far:]

I've read the whole email, and I'll try to respond soon. Tonight I'm gonna work on a web proposal, but I'll probably procrastinate by answering this

Initial thoughts: your approach has certainly opened up a few thoughts in my mind, and I'll respond to them point-by-point if I have something to say. I also agree that there's something lacking in either what you've described or the way you've described it.

Also, before coming up with generalizations about Green and Orange human rights, to make sure we've made a broad enough consideration, we should probably do some digging on the concept of human rights in general, and also different charters for different democratic countries to see how similar principles manifest.

[Sothy]

I now think that the people who wrote the test, are at least green in their outlook due to their educational and occupational outlooks. Perhaps higher, but probably green "by percentage".

I also think that I give orange too much credit in terms of human-rights. Orange would be objective, so everyone would be "equal", but depending on your point of view, the objectiveness changes (becomes subjective), so perhaps green is just "more objective" and more rational in this sense (not favouring a limited objective stance). I'd have to read up on Spiral Dynamics and finish SES to have a better opinion on this matter.

The one court thing is orange, not green IMO, and the many court thing green. However, the selective choosing of which courts are acceptable can be either pre or post-green, so my base question of how to tell which is which exists (even though my stances regarding what the various colours are thinking/doing, have changed somewhat from what is above).

I've gotten to the point where I want official languages to include Aboriginal languages for employment purposes (as the percentage of people who know them well enough to use them as a work language is soooo small as to not cause a logistical problem of not having the right number of English/French speakers), but not to include "newer" ethnic groups (Tamil, Chinese, Punjabi, etc.) as I feel that it would hurt the pre-orange folk (ie. you have to build a nation/sense of identity). This view could, also, of course, change...

Oh well...post old emails, this is what you get!

[evil_FUX]

Sothy, are you saying you belive now that the Feds have a green center of gravity?

[Sothy]

by Feds I mean Canadian Feds...

so bearing that in mind, the question is "who are the feds?"

I don't mean majority of the politicians in the Libs as their centre of gravity is mostly likely pre-green. However, some of the policy makers (in the Privy Council office and Prime Minister's office) as well as in the Lib party would be green IMO. These intentions are reflected in party speeches.

[da Tao]

I scanned this thread for 2 mins so this is my thoughts so far: It doesn't really matter what level the gov't is operating at, since they are ultimately bottlenecked by the general populous' support for their policies, AND that they can only communicate their vision broadly in a shallow manner (not too many people read the policy papers from the government) so even if they are second tier they will dumb things down in their policy speeches.

Quick note: psychometricians are probably aware of the developmental theories - but their questions are simply written to see how you do on separate traits... so it won't translate very well to the colour levels I think. And for the purpose of aceing the test - some what irrevelant.

Hey Sothy, are you trying out for the foreign service? Because it's either that or you are trying out for a management post in civil service. (I took the test last year for foreign service, but because of the much overdue foreign policy review, the FAC is putting a pause to all recruitment activities this year. Therefore I would be shocked if I missed the date for the tests this year.)

[Sothy]

Yeah, no hiring for the foreign service this year from what I hear...I am always interested in getting training so I wrote the test.

Do you have strategies for doing better on the SJT? Books to read? Common answering strategies? The other two tests are fine with me (well, they phased out one of the tests that I used to get my current job unfortunately, and now there are two judgement tests, so I have to get better at them as they are the wave of the future (or the next five years) it seems).

[da Tao]

Do you have strategies for doing better on the SJT? Books to read? Common answering strategies? The other two tests are fine with me (well, they phased out one of the tests that I used to get my current job unfortunately, and now there are two judgement tests, so I have to get better at them as they are the wave of the future (or the next five years) it seems).

Well this depends on what you mean by doing better... I myself passed by a hair, doing better than two of my friends who have above average interpersonal skills. (Though one of them likes to piss off people for fun and the other lacks patience for dumbasses.) So if you are already way pass the cutoff for Foreign Affairs, I won't be much help.

On the other hand, as an government employee you should try to go through the intranet and see if you can find documents such as Human Resources white papers, reports, training materials. The other intranet info you should look for is Personnel Psychology Centre. (If you find any goodies that aren't protected, send them over!)

Here is a good example that you probably have seen before:
http://www.psc-cfp.gc.ca/ppc/profile_main_e.htm

Psychometry was a side interest of mine - it's the external component of "measure of a man". The thing with the test is that they test multiple axis, and that it is impossible to max out on all axis because they interfere with each other in the extreme ends. So there are two points to worry about: One, the questions are written in such as way that discourage you from "guessing what they want" - it shows up as inconsistencies in the separate axis. Two, balance, too formulatic approach is probably going to break the test. Another good way is to make friends who are psychometricians!

You probably want to take reputable online personality tests, answer truthfully the first time and then tweak the answer to see what effects it has on the assessment until it matches what your wannabe job description is like.

Though, one word of warning - as one of my aquintance once said (he is now in the FS) just be yourself, becuase if there is a real mismatch it is going to suck for all concerned.

We can be test buddies, well good luck Sothy!

[Sothy]

Thanks for the advice. You beat me on the test then as I was below the cut-off for 2003-04 for the FS in that one test (78 I think it was)...this year they scored us using Z-scores and needing to score 3 above the average or something along those lines...it worked out to needing an 82 or 83 in my case...so I definitely have to look into this as I need to do a lot better if they want low 80s!

[Sothy]

Hey, they are hiring...go and look.